Lower Your Sails Again: Beychevelle 1905-2015

BY NEAL MARTIN | JANUARY 14, 2025

I begin with an apology. After detailing the puerile teenage ritual of “mooning” in the introduction of my 2023 article on Château Beychevelle, I received one or two messages from shocked readers who could not understand why one would want to do that. I have no idea. We all do idiotic things when we’re kids. Thankfully, nobody was showing their derrière when the estate hosted a splendid dinner to celebrate the 30th harvest overseen by managing director Philippe Blanc. I had been planning to journey down to Bordeaux the following week, but when advised that the vintages were worth altering my schedule, I tweaked my itinerary. In the end, this tasting stretched back almost 120 years and featured a vintage I had never encountered in my career. Vintages were selected numerically, that is to say, all those ending in “five,” unless the cellar had no bottles, in which case, alternatives were chosen (such as 1964 and 1921).

I am not going to retread the history of the château, nor the winemaking, since this was detailed in my previous article.

Here are a few takeaways from the tasting.

Firstly, perhaps their second wine, Amiral de Beychevelle, is underrated? I was pleasantly surprised how well the 2005 and 2010 showed, and they were actually superior to some of the off-vintage Grand Vins. Secondly, the 2015 Beychevelle is a benchmark modern-day vintage for Saint-Julien, where quality became more consistent. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2005 Beychevelle, however, it is interesting to compare the two side-by-side—the 2015 is imbued with more finesse and finer tannins, indicative of more precise viticulture and vinification. The older vintages come from an era when Beychevelle was not firing on all cylinders. The 1985 Beychevelle failed to pass muster. It felt completely disjointed, with a dominant veneer of oak and an ill-fitting Rhône-like finish. I actually preferred the 1975, a vintage that yielded tough wines on the Left Bank with a hardness that never really disappeared. The 1964 Beychevelle derives from a vintage when rain affected the harvest in the Médoc, and it comes across as slightly hollow and heavily chaptalized.

Annoyingly, I think the 1955 Beychevelle is a great wine, but an element of TCA in this bottle spun it off course. I’d love to try an untainted bottle. The 1945 Beychevelle is a solid contribution to this legendary vintage. Its wines tend to be haloed, but in reality, we forget that many Bordeaux estates were recovering—not just from six years of tumultuous war, but from a lack of investment that stretched back to the 1920s. The 1945 is a rather conservative Saint-Julien, and I have a sneaky suspicion that another bottle might show better. I had high hopes for the 1934 Beychevelle, but after an initial burst, it seemed to deflate, and I kept readjusting my score downwards. Before you argue that this should be expected given its age, step forward the 1921 Beychevelle. Wow. This was fabulous, initially overshadowed by the ’34, but it blossomed in the glass. Pure and sensual, the 1921 is a wine that must have been amazingly concentrated in its youth, but as a centurion, it proves once again that nothing compares to mature claret with age.

The two oldest wines were fascinating. The 1915 Beychevelle comes from a vintage that I presumed I would never encounter. Even the great Michael Broadbent does not contribute a single note to a vintage that, to quote the man himself, “suffered every conceivable problem.” That’s just the weather, let alone bloodshed in the trenches. As someone who is fascinated by off-vintages and their context, it was a privilege to taste something so rare. Quality was moot, though it was by no means undrinkable. It was as if this bottle had held on to life so that it could reach this evening 109 years later and prove that it existed before expiring.

The final bottle was the 1905 Beychevelle, poured blind. I got the impression that the Beychevelle team thought it was a great vintage, whereas, in fact, it was regarded as an average season, certainly nothing close to the caliber of the 1900. I had only ever tasted a frail 1905 Lafite Rothschild before…but this was a superior bottle. It was the inverse of the 1934, initially a little rustic and lightweight, the 1905 gained weight and clarity in the glass, revealing hidden fruit and complexity. Rising phoenix-like after 119 years, this was an awesome Saint-Julien.

Final Thoughts

This was a memorable dinner. The chronological instead of qualitative theme made it feel like a bona fide voyage through time. It proved the quality of Beychevelle as one of the standout wines in Saint-Julien and, by the same token, that it languished behind its peers until two crucial events: the appointment of Philippe Blanc and the installation of their new winery that incepted with the 2016 vintage. Both underly its consistency over the last decade. I suppose the real takeaway, the most awe-inspiring part about the vertical, is that it was bookended by two startling wines, the 2015 and the 1905. All that lay between them is 110 years. 

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Lower Your Sails (Or Breeches): Beychevelle 1929-2019, Neal Martin, January 2023